Syria Shattered

Inside the Battle for Homs, Syria

Homs once represented the best of the Middle East, an ancient city where people of different faiths, Christian and Muslim, did their best to live in peace. Now, it serves as a warning of what can happen when sectarian passions are unleashed. Syria Shattered, Part 1

BySam Dagher, Nour Malas and Sarah Slobin

HOMS, Syria—For many, Homs once represented the best of the Middle East, an ancient city where people of different faiths, Christian and Muslim, did their best to live in peace.

But Syria’s Arab Spring, which began here as a defiant civic exercise, soon exploded into one of the world’s bloodiest battlefields — a warning of what can happen when the region’s sectarian passions are unleashed.

In this Wall Street Journal special project, families from different sides of the conflict try to understand how it all fell apart.

Ismael Youssef and his mother, Ramzia al-Hourany — an Alawite family from a mixed neighborhood

Carole Alfarah for The Wall Street Journal

Before the conflict, violence over religion happened elsewhere, in Iraq, in Lebanon, not in Homs, said Ramzia al-Hourany, 81. She and her son Ismael Youssef are Alawites, a minority sect linked to the Shiite branch of Islam, a faith shared by the family of President
Bashar al-Assad.

Mrs. al-Hourany grew up under the shadow of the minarets that rose above the Sunni mosque of Khaled Ibn al Walid. “I had friends from all faiths, Christians, Shiites, Alawites and Sunni Muslims. Sheep and wolves living together. We were all brothers and sisters…This is the story of our life…It used to be beautiful.”

Mr. Youssef loved to shop the local markets. “I used to buy two pieces of bread, right from the oven, then go to the falafel shop to buy hummus,” he said. “Someone would give you an extra tomato or cucumber to eat on the way.”

June 2014: The same market, three years after the start of the confict.

Carole Alfarah for The Wall Street Journal

June 2014: The same market, three years after the start of the confict.

Abu Suleiman Abarra — bicycle repairman, anti-regime activist

Carole Alfarah for The Wall Street Journal

Abu Suleiman Abarra was born in Homs 40 years ago. He left school in the sixth grade to repair bicycles. Mr. Abarra, a Sunni Muslim, opened a shop in old Homs, on a street in a neighborhood called Bab Sibaa, alongside a glass seller, a grocer, a tailor and a watch merchant.

"God was generous to me, the shop I had, and a house and a car...When I used to finish work on Friday, once every two weeks, I used to go fishing... a long trip on my motorcycle winter or summer, it didn’t matter."

Courtesy Mr. Abarra

"God was generous to me, the shop I had, and a house and a car...When I used to finish work on Friday, once every two weeks, I used to go fishing... a long trip on my motorcycle winter or summer, it didn’t matter."

The Revolution

In the beginning, Syria’s Arab Spring brought hope.

After watching the 2011 uprisings in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and Yemen, many Syrians began talking openly of relief from tyranny. Of upending the Assad regime. Of what might come next.

Mr. Abarra videotaped the early demonstrations that later transformed into armed rebellion. "I wanted these images sent to the east and the west," he said, "to European countries and the world, to show what was happening in Syria. In the beginning I felt freedom."

Jarrard Cole/The Wall Street Journal

Mr. Abarra videotaped the early demonstrations that later transformed into armed rebellion. "I wanted these images sent to the east and the west," he said, "to European countries and the world, to show what was happening in Syria. In the beginning I felt freedom."

Protesters first called for the ouster of the governor of Homs. Mr. Abarra said the governor’s administration was hated. “If you park your car 20 centimeters further than you should, he gives you a ticket. If you want your papers processed by the government, you had to bribe them.”

Sunnis held government jobs, but Alawite supervisors had all the power, demonstrators said. The crowd quickly focused on the removal of President Assad.

In March, the regime began erecting blockades to thwart the street marches. Tensions escalated. A security guard was killed. Syrians tore down a billboard of Mr. Assad and his late father in the center of Homs.

On Good Friday in April, activists invited Christians to join in protests. That weekend regime forces killed seven protesters. Marchers occupied New Clock square for hours, chanting, “The people want to topple the regime.”

Security forces later opened fire. Across Syria, more than 100 people were killed during a weekend where tens of thousands of people demonstrated.

Religious divisions, long repressed, quickly surfaced and further split the demonstrators from pro-regime Syrians. The opposition to the Assad regime was formed largely by Sunni Muslims, the country’s majority. Mr. Assad is an Alawite, a minority sect that has dominated Syria for more than four decades.

The regime said the violence was driven by Islamist extremists. Activists and rebels blamed regime forces. “They were shooting at us with guns. We had only stones,” Mr. Abarra said.

Neighbors Torn Apart

Hilal Adel Douri — house painter turned rebel

Carole Alfarah for The Wall Street Journal

Hilal Adel Douri, a 32-year-old house painter and Sunni Muslim, was among the early protesters. As crowds shouted against the regime, he said, “the Alawites started throwing rocks at us, and we did the same to them.” At the time, he had a wife, a young son and a steady trade.

Mr. Douri joined a rebel group that helped him buy his first gun. At first, they could afford only one weapon at a time. As outside money arrived, the guns and rebels multiplied. “In the beginning we were maybe 30 people, and we became 60 or 70 people,” he said. “My intention wasn’t to be a militant, but the most important thing is to be able to defend yourself and your religion.”

Sectarian killings grew and kidnappings became another weapon. Mr. Douri said neighbors turned into bargaining chips. “We would take people into captivity because they had a lot of our people in captivity,” he said. “So we would take some of their people prisoner and exchange for one of ours.”

Among the missing was Ahmad Youssef, a son of the elderly Alawite Ramzia al-Hourany. According to her other son Ismael, Ahmad went out to get his hair cut and buy some door locks for his new house. He never came home.